Best Technical Interview Books: Top Recommended

There are a number of high quality books available for technical interview preparation. I picked these top books because they are good to read and study before you go to an interview, and each book approaches the technical interview from a different angle and perspective. I personally want to recommend to read these books for new graduates and for senior specialists, for software developers and QA Testers, for network administrators and business analysts. Considering that, here are the top technical interview preparation books.

The Google Resume: How to Prepare for a Career and Land a Job at Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any Top Tech Company

The job seekers often get prepared for an interview by searching the most frequently asked interview questions on Google, correctly assuming that the most often asked questions are the most important concepts of any technology, otherwise they would not have been asked again and again during interview. This approach is right, but in order to get in the interview room the job applicant, has to design and tailor the cover letter and resume, leverage job network, and finally negotiate an offer. The Google Resume book by Gayle Laakmann McDowell who served on the hiring committee and interviewed candidates for Google has answers on almost all job seekers issues and problems. Despite the name, the book is not Google specific and every technical job candidate should find the way to the hiring offices at Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Zinga and etc. Gayle provides detailed resume examples, gives concrete suggestions for how to get an interview, explain answers to behavioral interview questions and demystify job offer negotiation. In my opinion the book creates a road map to top tech companies and suitable not only for college students but for a professionals with several years of experience.

Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?

William Poundstone is back with a sequel to his take on tricky Microsoft interview process, How Would You Move Mount Fuji? book. For the last eight years the author collected some of the toughest interview questions that are actually being asked by interviewers today. The questions like "If you could be any superhero, who would it be?", "What color best represents your personality?" and "What animal are you?" being asked not only in Silicon Valley start ups, but in companies like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and AT&T. Perhaps you think that interviewers have no idea how to screen qualified talent to fill their needs, but the best answers to many of the questions starts with, "It depends.". By design, none of these questions has a right answer and interviewers want to weed out the applicants and hire only outside the box thinkers. Puzzle and brain teasers require job applicants to demonstrate something on the spot and can add additional depth to other interview questions. I hope this book would be helpful in modernizing your resume, skills, and more importantly your attitude.

Now in the 6th edition Cracking the Coding Interview book gives job seeker the interview preparation job seeker needs to get the top software related jobs. The book contains 150 interview questions and provides not only answers to these questions, but describes how should interviewee approach the similar problems in the future. There is a large group of job seekers who for example understand the common sorting algorithms, but still feel stressed and intimidated during an interview and can not properly explain the difference between bubble sort and quick sort to give the interviewer the confidence interviewer is looking for. In Top Ten Mistakes Candidates Make section, the book prepares the candidate to avoid stress and intimidation during an interview. In addition to technical part of the interview, books covers in details the steps for resume preparation, describes how to handle behavior interview question and finally covers the offer negotiation tricks. I highly recommend buying and studying this book, if you have a plans to work for any high tech company.

How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle

Interview puzzles, riddles and brain teasers are one of those interview questions that every job seeker hates, but there are interviewers who find that logic questions are critically important in choosing between job applicants. These interviewers want to see on the correct answers, but the detailed logic process by which the interviewee would come up with an answer. If you are interested in learning more about logic interview puzzle I would definitely recommend How Would You Move Mount Fuji? book which has a collection of entertaining puzzles and brainteasers from job interviews in Microsoft. The book is valuable not only for job seekers, but for interviewers who want to update the hiring practices. If you heard that Microsoft, Google or Facebook are no longer asking brain teasers questions like the ones in this book during technical interviews, I guarantee there are plenty of interviewers who like to tease job candidates with puzzles and brainteaser. At last, a few puzzles from the book: how would you weigh a jet plane without using scales, why are manhole covers round rather than square, how many piano tuners are there in the U.S. and finally how would you test a toaster?

Agile Hiring

The book is written by Sean Landis who is a software architect with over twenty years of experience hiring software profession and mainly targets hiring managers, but unemployed and ambitious software professionals could certainly follow described key parts of hiring process from another side of trenches. Agile Hiring book is outstandingly different from any other book written on hiring process, and fruitful with a new hiring ideas while covering standard technical interview parts - resume reviews, phone interviews, on site interviews, and making the offer. The difference is that author shows how to apply Agile Principles to hiring process and help hire software professionals better while promoting consistency with hiring guidance. This book is a must have guide for anyone involved in hiring software professionals and who wants radically improve the quality of hiring.

I am hundred percent sure that you would not get a job automatically, if you buy and read these top interview books. You have to do a lot of work on your own, but these books will definitely point you in the right direction regardless of technical field or number of years of experience.